Thomas Rydder

The actual clearing of Thomas Rydder’s novel is the place of battle. A stretch of Pennsylvania backwoods where a group of determined men squares off with a pack of savage, supernatural wolves. It’s a proving ground of sorts that epitomizes a the plot of the novel, a blend of tactical combat and a chess match played out between the sturdy Sheriff Frank Cutlip and the monstrous leader of the wolf pack.

And there’s a lot at stake. The Sheriff stands to lose his brother and possibly watch show more his home town descend into chaos. The wolves, on the other hand, are pressed for time. They must complete a sinister, primal ritual or face losing their powers. The struggle between man and wolf can only become lethal.

There are many shades of lethal however, and The Clearing’s has an old fashioned, thrill ride sensibility to it, like climbing onto one if those iconic wooden roller coasters from the early 1900’s and holding on tight while your teeth rattle .

In fact, the entire book has an old-fashioned sensibility to it. It is colored with an undertone of Americana and nostalgia, part John Wayne/ John Ford and part Norman Rockwell magazine cover, it evinces a strong feeling of a more innocent past.

The men of The Clearing – to a man- display valor and honor. They are gritty, handy with guns, and gentle to women. This might be one small downside to the novel, they’re all cut from the same cloth, and I kept hoping at least one of them would be a jerk or a coward. Or maybe even a cowardly jerk. The women are resourceful and super helpful. Romance falls decidedly into the sphere of the chaste. In terms of horror, it reminds me more of the horror novels of the 1960′s, novels that used suspense and tight plotting to scare. And while there is violence and blood, The Clearing is refreshingly free of the post-90′s preoccupation with micro-reporting pain, torture and cruelty. Nor does The Clearing exhibit the kind of smarmy, sarcastic tone of so many horror stories about teenagers.

Overall, I found The Clearing to be a vintage roller-coaster ride, a solid, well-told tale of wolves and men, and I look forward to more work from Thomas Rydder. show less

This story is about a small town sheriff and his town when a pack of "extra-large" wolves show up. It turns out that these are not ordinary wolves. I liked the fact that this was a werewolf story that was not full of all the blood and guts you find in most of these stories. It has just enough violent details to give the reader a picture of the nature of these supernatural beasts but it doesn't go on with page after page of gore. It also deviated from the norm in the evolution of the beasts show more and their ultimate goal.
There was a fair amount of suspense although there were often times when the scenes were quite predictable. I especially enjoyed the vivid details of the characters who joined the sheriff on his mission to save the town, however some characters felt unrealistic and their actions were really unbelievable given the circumstances. It was an easy read and, although I felt I knew how it would end, I still wanted to finish it to see if I was right! show less

Title: The Clearing
Author: Thomas Rydder
Publisher: Greyhart Press
Year Published: 2013
Pages: 228 (ebook)

First Line (Prologue): He stepped aside and let the followers pass.

Received through the Early Reviewers program over at LibraryThing.

I wasn’t overly impressed with The Clearing, but I wasn’t disappointed, either. Writing in a well established genre, especially one currently dominated by teen-angst ridden garbage, is difficult, and kudos to Rydder for giving it a whirl. And really, show more there’s nothing exactly wrong with The Clearing. It does a couple things well, narrowly misses a couple others, and falls far short in a couple areas as well. There is a single thing that ruins the entire book for me, but it’s a personal preference and probably shouldn’t be held against Mr. Rydder or The Clearing.

All in all, a solid and respectable first book that Rydder should be proud of. And hey… At least nothing sparkles.

What worked:
1. I really liked the reintroduction of the more traditional elements of the werewolf legend. There were a few new elements that Rydder implemented, as well, and he kept them in line with the traditions of the genre. That worked extremely well for him throughout the novel.
2. Rydder’s description is solid. His tendency to imply rather than be explicit works well for him, especially when focused on the inherent violence and gore of the genre. But that solid description comes with a bit of a price, which I’ll get into more in a moment.

What almost worked, but just missed:
1. PoV of a dog: I love the idea, but for me it fell short of it’s potential. This is a dog… I think there needs to be a much more drastic change in the style and/or structure of the narrative to pull it off. A more pronounced sensory component, perhaps, with limitations of black/white vision. But the thought process, in general was extremely similar to the PoV-human sections. I have no idea what the thought process is of a dog, but I would have liked to see something much more distinctive that set it apart from the other chapters/sections of the novel.
2. The overall structure of the novel seemed… choppy. I think this was intentional and meant to assist the pacing of the story itself – things happening quickly – but, for me, it just seemed awkward and, in places, unfinished. He seems to have found a sort of no-man’s-land with scene length that just didn’t work – I always either wanted more action or less “filler” (see below).

There were also a couple things that fell far, far short for me:
1. I didn’t buy the budding romance of the main characters at all. Much of it had to do with the female character, Beth. She starts out as a strong, independent woman, which was a breath of fresh air in the stale female characters typically generated for this genre. Soon, however, her strength evaporates and she devolves into the typical weak-willed and weak-minded girl-who-needs-saving by the big strong man. The relationship that forms between Beth and “big strong man,” as a direct result, is cliche and just doesn’t work. The romance also drew focus from the primary storyline, and the overall focus of the book becomes very unclear.
2. The biggest weakness of the novel, though, is Rydder’s struggle with dialogue. It is, to be blunt, awful. Rydder seems to be aware of this, however, and he results to long passages of exposition and description, often times in places where it would be best to focus on action and, unfortunately, dialogue. There were times, especially in the “romantic” scenes, that the dialogue seemed so far removed from any sort of characterization that I nearly put the book down.

The ruiner:
I loathe being beaten about the eyes in the final paragraphs of a novel with obvious setup for the next novel – especially if the setup novel is not even 300 pages and the next is going to start immediately without a change in the overall conflict! In my mind, The Clearing is half a book. I’m a fan of multi-volume stories with story arcs that span multiple novels (see my upcoming post on The Wheel of Time, for example), but they need to be planned that way from the beginning, and the arc needs to be strong enough to tie everything together. That is not the case with The Clearing. Instead, Rydder started the story arc for his sequel about 2/3 of the way through, and then pummeled me with the main characters making plans for what to do next in the final pages. I felt tricked, used and wholly unsatisfied with the conclusion of The Clearing.

That said, I still think The Clearing is a solid first book. Will I read the sequel? Probably not, but primarily because of the the personal preference that ruined the book for me rather than anything else about the narrative or style. The research Rydder did is evident and paid off early on. I just wish he had stuck with telling me a story he has finished rather than selling me a story he hasn’t. show less

This book started out great - it was an interesting new, or maybe I should say old, spin on the werewolf tale. I liked the whole idea of the pack and their leader, even the choice of a blood hound to take over. I also liked the heroine, Beth, at the beginning. She starts out strong and smart. However, her behaviour after the violent death of her friend just seemed, I dunno, wrong on all kinds of levels. She seemed less grief-stricken than seeing it as an opportunity to 'catch her man'. That show more wouldn't be so bad, dumb but not bad, but the story seemed to lose focus at this point. Had the tale focused less on Frank and Beth to more about the pack, the bad romance and Beth's increasingly weird behaviour might have been overlooked. Unfortunately, it didn't. It's a shame because this story had so much potential but just seemed to throw it away. show less